What Are Little Boys Made Of?

In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.

Slouching Towards Kampala: Uganda’s Deadly Embrace of Hate

When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.

David Benkof: Behind the Mask

At first glance, David Benkof appears to be a young gay man who believes that same-sex marriage will damage the institution of marriage, that there are better options for gay couples than marriage, that the community should join him in prioritizing other more pressing issues, and that the marriage discussion is harming the efforts of gay couples in red states to get recognition for their unions. He also claims that he’s a gay columnist, that he speaks for an influential collection of gay thinkers, and that he is part of the gay and lesbian community and that he shares our goals and dreams. But none of that is true.

“Repeat After Me”: The Reparative Therapy Echo Chamber

The April 2008 edition of the pay-to-publish vanity journal Psychological Reports featured a new report from NARTH. Written by NARTH president A. Dean Byrd, past president Joseph Nicolosi, and Richard W. Potts, the report carries the unwieldy but self-descriptive title, “Clients perceptions of how reorientation therapy and self-help can promote changes in sexual orientation.” While the title describes what the authors meant to show — how clients describe the benefits of reparative therapy — the report itself actually illustrates something very different: the ex-gay movement’s remarkable ability to instill an almost robot-like parroting of ex-gay rhetoric among their clients.

Testing the Premise: Is MRSA The New Gay Plague?

The Toronto Star said that a new study “discover[ed] a new strain” of a super-bug “hitting gay men.” Headlines in Britain screamed, “Flesh-eating bug strikes San Francisco’s gay community,” and anti-gay extremists across America spread the alarm that gays were introducing another plague into “the general population.” But there was a small problem with all of this: None of it is true!

Paul Cameron’s World

In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.

From the Inside: Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out”

On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.

The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths

At last, the truth can now be told.

Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!

Testing The Premise: Are Gays A Threat To Our Children?

Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.

Straight From The Source: What the “Dutch Study” Really Says About Gay Couples

Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.

The FRC’s Briefs Are Showing

Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.

Review: The Gay Report

When Karla Jay and Allan Young published The Gay Report in 1979, it quickly a favorite source of statistics for many anti-gay extremists. But before you accepts these statistic at face value, you should examine the inner workings of this survey very carefully. What you learn might surprise you.

Daniel Fetty Doesn’t Count

The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.

Posts for May, 2010

Mary Glasspool Consecrated in Los Angeles

Jim Burroway

May 15th, 2010

In a celebration reflecting the incredible cultural diversity of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles Diocese, the former Rev. Canon and now the Rt. Rev. Mary Glasspool was consecrated as Bishop Suffragan. Bishop Glasspool’s consecration marks the second time an openly gay clergy has been consecrated as bishop in the Episcopal Church. She is also the first lesbian to be so ordained.

Also consecrated as Bishop Suffragan was the Rt. Rev. Diane Jardine Bruce. The ceremony was presided by Most Rev. Katharine Schori, Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church. The event took place before a large crowd in the Long Beach Arena.

The ceremony was briefly interrupted just following the opening prayer by two protesters who were sitting among the congregation on the floor of the arena. First a middle-aged man stood up, held up a sign that I was unable to see from my vantage point, and shouted “Repent! Homosexuality is an abomination to God!” He continued to shout anti-gay slogans as church officials calmly escorted him out of the arena.

After he was escorted out, a smaller child (he appeared to be a pre-teen boy) stood up near to where the man had been standing and shouted, “Homosexuality is an abomination to God.” He, too, was patiently escorted out, while shouting the entire time. Just as he left the arena, someone was heard to yell from the balcony, “we’re praying for you” to the gentle laughter of the congregation, and the ceremony continued.

I was very impressed with the quiet dignity with which church officials and the congregation bore the interruptions, as well as the insults heaped upon them as they entered the arena before the service.

Due to the tight configuration of buildings at the entrance, every attendee of the consecration ceremony had to walk past the protesters as a sort of anti-gay and anti-woman gauntlet. The protesters seemed equally agitated that the bishops being consecrated were women as much as the fact that one was a lesbian. One harangued the gentle crowd with demands that the women grow out their hair long and be subservient to their husbands, “as the Bible commands.” But clearly, it was Rev. Glasspool’s consecration that drew the most condemnation. “A Bishop must be a man married to his wife, not a lesbian to a woman,” he shouted to no one who listened.

Aside from the outburst following the opening prayers, the rest of the three-hour ceremony went off without incident. The Bishop of Los Angeles, the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, delivered the homily in which he reflected on the diversity of the church:

We are a mixed batch, but we are stronger because we are all of those things. We are stronger because we respect the dignity of every human being, that we stand for their right to stand up and be the people of God. I doesn’t matter what their physical ability is, it doesn’t matter who they are, what race, what country they come from, what sexuality they have. It matters that they are people of God.

In a nod to the protesters, he referred to the point in the ceremony in which the the congregation is asked whether there are any objections. Bishop Bruno said,

I don’t think there was one person in the place that was more nervous than I was about objections. But we didn’t have any objections today from anybody who was an Episcopalian. [laughter] We had people outside and inside who came here because they don’t understand the inclusive nature of the Episcopal Church.

…We, as bishops of this church, are called to be exemplars of Jesus’s presence in this world. We’re called to teach people and bring them to a place of self understanding so that they don’t, out of fear or anxiety or fear of change become Ideological idolaters of the past.

Following that homily, history was made again, when Revs. Bruce and Glasspool were consecrated through the ancient practice of the laying on of hands by a multitude of consecrating bishops. They were then given the Mitre and symbols of office and presented to the congregation to roaring cheers and applause.

Episcopal Church approves lesbian bishop

Timothy Kincaid

March 17th, 2010

A majority of bishops and dioceses of the Episcopal Church have approved the election of the church’s second openly gay bishop, the Rev. Mary D. Glasspool, a decision likely to increase the tension with fellow Anglican churches around the world that do not approve of homosexuality.